‘Mail hacked, fake plaint sent to NMMC website’

Chauhan regularly uses NMMC’s online website to make inquiries or complain about certain civic issues. The forged complaint was with regard to a housing property in Airoli ward.TNN | January 04, 2017, 12:10 IST

NAVI MUMBAI: City-based RTI activist, Anarjit Chauhan, on Monday discovered that a forged and frivolous complaint was sent on his name and from his account to the NMMC online citizens’ redressal website about a civic issue. On inquiring with civic officials from the information technology section, Chauhan found that the hacker procured passwords of his email and his account on the NMMC citizens’ redressal site.

He wrote about this to municipal commissioner, Tukaram Mundhe, and denied having lodged the complaint. “I have also intimated the Navi Mumbai Police and urged them to inquire into the matter,” said Chauhan.

Chauhan regularly uses NMMC’s online website to make inquiries or complain about certain civic issues. The forged complaint was with regard to a housing property in Airoli ward.

A civic official from the IT cell told TOI, “As Chauhan is denying having sent the said complaint, we will inquire how anybody else could get into his account without him knowing about it. This is the first such case that we have come across on our website.”

The official added that if citizens want use the NMMC online redressal system, they will have to login using their personal email. Then a one-time password is sent to their mobile phone for them to securely log into the site.

Senior inspector of Navi Mumbai Cyber Crime Cell, Ankush Khedkar, told TOI, “We are compiling the cybercrime data for 2016. It will be available to the public in a few days. However, over the years we have noticed an increase in various cybercrimes, primarily credit card or ATM card frauds, email hacking, lottery scams, social media frauds and abusive emails/SMS among others.”

About email hacking, Khedkar asked citizens to be careful about their passwords which must be a strong combination of alphabets, numbers and symbols. The cybercrime cell head also advised that individuals must be alert while using their personal email or credit card details at a public place, such as a cyber cafe.

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